Design, etc
Customers pay vast sums of money to fly business and first class not only to enjoy the larger legroom and the free champagne, but equally to bask in the control over every detail afforded to them during their journey. The menu offers an array of meal options, individual multimedia stations offer a selection of entertainment, and local directional lighting is under their full command. Temperature, however, affects everybody on board equally, whether flying first class or economy; we share the air we breathe and the environmental temperature.
The aim was to give passengers control where an individual, physical bubble was impractical. A simple control panel built into the armrest - integrated into the existing interface - gives users control over their environment in two ways: by giving an immediate, local, short term response, and by simultaneously influencing the collective environment to ensure that as many travellers as possible are comfortable with the ambient temperature at all times.
Project carried out together with Boeing Europe and British Airways